Rem Pitlick’s time with Laval turned out to be relatively brief as the Habs announced on Wednesday that they’ve recalled him from Laval. To make room for him on the roster, Jonathan Drouin was placed on injured reserve.
Pitlick cleared waivers earlier this month after a slow start to his season that saw him play in just seven games while failing to record a point. Those games were on the wing while in Laval, he lined up as a centre, recording three assists in as many contests.
However, while he’s back up now, it might be short-lived as he’s basically covering as a 13th forward with Joel Armia also banged up. The Habs know that they’ll soon need another roster spot as Mike Matheson is nearing a return and while carrying eight defencemen isn’t ideal, it is one option they can take. In that case, Pitlick would be the logical choice to send back down.
As for Drouin, he suffered an upper-body injury earlier this month against Vegas and played through it last week before they shut him down in advance of yesterday’s loss to New Jersey. It’s expected that he’ll miss four to six weeks at which point it could be close to half the season gone (depending on how long he’s out). That won’t give him a lot of time to try to build up some value as Drouin has struggled early on this well, failing to score while recording just four assists in his 12 games while being a healthy scratch at times as well.